As text-messaging codes and shorthand become increasingly widespread and interchangeably used in mails, chat forums or tweets, the Oxford English Dictionary has included in a recent edition a batch of words and phrases such as cream crackered, wag and tinfoil hat, as well as internet-era initialisms like LOL and OMG (Underwire).

But what do LOL and OMG really stand for? And why abbreviations have become more popular than their equivalents?

LOL: “Laughing out loud” (also written occasionally as “Lots of Laughs”), used as a brief acronym to denote great amusement in chat conversations (Urban Dictionary).

OMG: Net-centric abbreviation for the popular exclamation “Oh my God!” (generally used in conversations to exclaim surprise or disgust)(Urban Dictionary).

The truth is that more than 2,000 texting abbreviations owe their existence to the boom in social-media sites like Twitter that, in order to convey the message, limit the characters to a hundred and forty, around two short paragraphs or 14 sentences. This has resulted in space-restricted messages. Also, they are limited in length, so users have developed an alphabet soup of shorthand abbreviations to save time and effort.

Other widely-used and widely accepted computer codes are:

ROFL = rolling on floor laughing
BRB = be right back
FYI = for your information
BTW = by the way
TTFN = tata for now
CYA = see ya
HTH = hope that helps
IMHO = in my honest opinion
IYSWIM = if you see what I mean

And some “parent-related” ones:

PIR =Parent in room
POS=Parent over shoulder
99=Parents are no longer watching
B15=Back in 15 minutes
PAW=Parents are watching